


as prisoned birds must find in freedom

by schweet_heart



Series: Merlin Fic [196]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War I, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 06:54:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21540214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweet_heart/pseuds/schweet_heart
Summary: After the war ends, Merlin and Arthur retreat to Paris for some much-needed rest and relaxation, and contemplate the possibility of a future together.The final instalment of thewhere gloom and brightness meetseries, but can be read as a stand-alone.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Merlin Fic [196]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/70688
Comments: 42
Kudos: 198
Collections: Finish that Fic Merlin!





	as prisoned birds must find in freedom

**Author's Note:**

> **Content notes:** brief descriptions of nightmares containing violence and body horror. References to PTSD and amputation.
> 
> Author does not pretend to be historically accurate (although I did Google a few things, I swear). Please humour me anyway XD
> 
> Please do not repost elsewhere or list my fic on Goodreads (or any other similar spaces).

After the war, they go to Paris.

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say they _end up_ in Paris. The army, in its infinite wisdom, seems rather less enthusiastic about getting rid of them than it had been about signing them up, and in the limbo that occurs after the armistice they are more or less left to their own devices. Arthur wants to explore the City of Lights, and Merlin has never had the heart to refuse him anything—of course, wherever Arthur goes, Merlin will go also.

They spend the first night in a hotel in the seventh _arrondissement_ , a great, early-Victorian eyesore of a building with more cornices and flourishes than Merlin has ever seen in his life. There are plush carpets on the floors and tasteful paintings on the walls, and all the furniture is of a deep, rich mahogany, polished to a shine so bright it gleams. In the glow from the electric lighting, Merlin is distinctly aware of his and Arthur’s state of under-dress, their dishevelled uniforms and the trail of mud they leave with their boots. It’s as if they have clawed their way out of the bowels of hell and returned to find themselves monstrous and changed.

“A room,” Arthur says, and perhaps Merlin is imagining it but his accent sounds plummier than usual, losing the rough edges it had picked up in the trenches, “for my friend and I. The best you have available, _s’il vous-plaît._ ”

“Of course, Monsieur,” the concierge says, with little more than a flicker of an eyebrow to indicate his astonishment. “And your name?”

“Pendragon,” Arthur says, and Merlin watches the neat little man unbend into obsequious flattery. “Lord Arthur Pendragon, of Camelot.”

They are shown into a palatial suite with a view of the Eiffel Tower, and Merlin spends the first few minutes touching all the items on display with reverent fingers—the bed, the armoire, the delicate vases filled with flowers that occupy the tables in the outer room. The strangest part is how it isn’t strange to be among fine things again; if he tries, he can pretend they’ve just arrived from Camelot, the intervening years nothing more than a terrible dream.

“It’s like a mausoleum,” Arthur says in disgust. He tips over one of the vases and it rolls, spilling water and flower petals over the tabletop. “I always thought the world would be different, when it was over.”

Merlin says nothing. The world _isn't_ all that different, really, not in the essentials, but perhaps Arthur is. He catches the vase before it hits the floor and sets it upright again, and he’s already reaching to tidy up the broken stems when Arthur catches his arm.

“Don’t,” he says, and it’s the look in his eyes that stops Merlin more than his tone. “It’s not your place, anymore.”

He squeezes Merlin’s wrist and then lets go, but Merlin remains frozen where he stands, those five little words tearing through him like artillery fire. It hadn’t occurred to him, foolishly, that coming back would mean anything but a return to the way things were before, to Arthur the Lord and Merlin the servant, the two of them taking up their accustomed roles as though they’d never left them. He has only ever been one thing in his life, and that’s Arthur’s—whether his body servant or his batman or anything in between—and the thought of being cut adrift after so long is more terrifying than he would care to admit.

“Arthur,” he says, but Arthur isn’t listening.

“All of these people, going on with their lives in luxury,” he mutters. “Anyone would think it was still 1913.”

“ _Arthur_.”

Finally, Arthur looks at him. Merlin imagines he must look the way he feels, like Arthur's taken up a bayonet and is about to run him through, but Arthur blinks at him as if he hadn't just hinted at sending Merlin away.

"When you say it's not my place," Merlin says, holding onto his self-control with trembling hands, "what do you mean? You're going to pick up after yourself for a change?"

Arthur smiles. “I just meant,” he slides one fingertip over Merlin's knuckles and into the curve of his fist, prising it open to touch the soft palm inside, “that you’re more than a servant to me, Merlin, and you always were. It seems pointless to go on pretending otherwise.”

He lets Merlin go and moves away from him, already shedding layers as he heads towards the tub. Merlin stands staring after him, feeling as though some great certainty of his life has just come unmoored. He knows that Arthur loves him, the same way he knows that the sun will rise in the east and a bullet through the heart will kill a man, but until this moment he had never considered that Arthur might love him enough for this—to willingly burn through the conventions that have structured half his life, to risk his family’s name and his father’s displeasure for Merlin’s sake. It had always seemed like such a hopeless dream before.

He lets Arthur wash while he unpacks their things, reverting to habit in the absence of anything better to do. The thing that Arthur doesn’t, perhaps will never understand is that it isn’t about _place_ or _class_ or anything else when they’re alone; it’s about Merlin wanting to hold onto him in any way he can, to send him off armoured with the fondness of Merlin’s hands smoothing his shirt-collars, Merlin’s affection ironed into every crease and seam as he walks out into the world. He’s been protecting Arthur for so long and from so much that he’s not sure he really knows of any other way to be, not sure he even _wants_ the freedom that Arthur is offering him. If he isn’t Arthur’s servant any longer, then what excuse can he make for himself when he inevitably falls short of Arthur’s expectations, when it turns out that he’s not the man Arthur wants him to be?

When Arthur emerges from his bath, his hair damp and curling at the nape of his neck, he sighs and shakes his head at the immaculate room as though it were something ridiculous, and Merlin shoots him a look that has barbs along its edges.

“I’m a tidy person,” he says, and at Arthur’s incredulous look he adds, “Tidier than you, anyway, which is the important part. _Someone_ has to find us a change of clothes and make sure we look presentable.”

Arthur smiles wryly, then leans forward to kiss him, and that, at least, is familiar in all the right ways, the possessive curl of Arthur’s palm against his back, his sweet mouth.

“You’re an idiot,” he says, when they break apart. His breath is warm against Merlin’s ear, making him shiver. “But if you hurry up and soak that stupid head of yours, you can make it up to me by joining me for dinner.”

Merlin smiles back, forcing down the anxiety still lodged in his gut. “I thought you’d never ask.”

+

That night, Merlin dreams of blood and death. He is standing in a river of mud, up to his boots in it, somewhere in the hellscape known as No Man’s Land. In front of him there is a boy strung up on barbed wire. Behind him, he knows without turning, there is a man with a gun.

Strangely, neither of these facts disturbs him particularly. What does disturb him is the mud. It seems to be getting deeper. Every time he tries to take a step—to save the boy, to get away from the gun—it clings to him the more tightly, as though intent on dragging him down. He falls to his knees, overbalancing, and it sucks up his hands, his wrists. He’s trying to get up but he can’t move, can only lift his head to look at the boy, who is screaming. 

The boy on the wire has Arthur’s face. The man with the gun is about to shoot him.

“Merlin. Merlin!”

The sense of dislocation is brutal. He returns to consciousness to find hands on his arms, grasping at his shoulders, and he shoves them away violently, scrambling back until he can press himself up against the headboard. A voice—half remembered, half imagined—swears loudly and calls his name again, while Merlin gropes blindly for something he can use as a weapon.

“Merlin, it’s me.”

Slowly, the fragments of his nightmare resolve into something different. Arthur is on the floor, picking himself up with an effort, his hands half raised as though expecting someone to shoot. In his underthings, a thin white singlet over blue-striped pyjama bottoms, he looks small and starkly vulnerable on his knees in the dark.

“Merlin?”

“Yeah.” Merlin is breathing hard, his body prickling with a fine sheen of sweat. “Yeah, I’m awake.”

Arthur flicks on the electric lamp without saying anything, helping Merlin to strip off his sweat-damp shirt and trousers and bundling him into dry clothes without a word. Merlin is still dazed, every nerve in his body sparking like an electrical wire, but Arthur’s touch is firm and grounding, brisk without being rough, supportive without being invasive. Merlin allows himself to be manhandled, struggling to catch his breath in the aftermath of adrenaline, while Arthur sits him down on the bed like a child and pulls off Merlin’s socks.

With increased stability comes shame. He has survived four years in the trenches, a living nightmare if ever there was one, but a little mud is enough to drive him into hysterics?

Not even real mud, which would be bad enough. A dream about mud. A fantasy.

“Sorry,” he says, his voice coming out rusty and thick. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s no trouble.”

Arthur chucks the socks in the direction of the wardrobe, then rests a hand on Merlin’s knee. Only then does he realise that it’s been jiggling, up-and-down, up-and-down like it might never stop.

“Are you all right?”

“I’ve been better.” Merlin runs a hand through his hair and straightens, trying to laugh it off. “But I’ve also been a lot worse, don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

“What were you dreaming about?” Arthur asks, voice quiet. “Was it—” He can’t seem to look at Merlin. “When you were a prisoner, did they—?”

“It was all right,” Merlin says. “No—it wasn’t _all right_ , it was horrible, conditions were bad and the guards were terrible, but I survived. They didn’t torture us, if that’s what you’re asking. I was dreaming about the mud.”

Arthur doesn’t acknowledge the absurdity of this. “For me, it’s the lice,” he says, quite casually. “Crawling all over me. I keep trying to get rid of them but more appear out of nowhere, like they’re eating me alive. Sometimes they turn into rats. Sometimes I get the kerosene and set myself on fire.”

He says it matter-of-factly, like it’s not the most horrifying thing to have ever come out of his mouth, and Merlin shudders. “I knew you slept badly when we were at the front,” he says. “But at least you had a _reason_ , then. I’ve always slept like a log, until tonight.”

“Perhaps it’s catching up with you,” Arthur says, touching his face. “Now that everything’s over, there are bound to be,” he hesitates, “repercussions.”

Repercussions. Like reverberations, maybe, the way he sometimes thinks he can hear the guns again in every motor car’s backfire.

“It’s all right,” Merlin says again, because Arthur’s looking up at him with that familiar furrow between his brows, the one where he’s trying not to show how much he cares. It’s late, he’s tired, and the world is a much darker place at three in the morning than it is at any other time. “Go back to bed. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

Arthur says nothing for a while, still studying Merlin’s expression, balancing himself against Merlin’s knees. “I could stay,” he says at length. “If you want.”

Merlin does want. Merlin wants nothing more than to bury himself and all his bad dreams in the warmth of Arthur’s body, but despite Arthur’s careful nonchalance there are things—gossip, reputations—other obligations they have to consider. “You don’t have to do that.”

“No,” Arthur agrees. “But I want to.”

Arthur sleeps on the left. Merlin, curled on his side in the middle of the bed, lies as close as he dares, his spine drawing a line down Arthur’s sternum. They’re both of them too thin, starved into slimness by months of hard rations and bully beef, but Arthur has something more of solidity to him than Merlin; more than he feels, at any rate, just at the moment. After a brief hesitation, he reaches back and draws Arthur’s free arm over his hip, threading their fingers together in front of his chest. It takes a second before he registers the stub of Arthur’s little finger.

“Sorry,” Arthur says, after a pause. “We could—if I lie on the other side—”

“No, it’s all right,” Merlin says, clasping the truncated knuckle more tightly in his grip. He doesn’t miss Arthur’s subtle flinch, or the way he tries to tug his hand away, just for a second, before lying still as if he hasn’t moved at all. “I’m not used to it, is all.”

“I know it’s ugly.”

“Nothing about you is ugly,” Merlin says, and then: “I'm jealous you got yourself a souvenir, though. No one looking at me would guess that I've ever been to the front.”

“Scars don’t make a soldier.”

“Sure they do. Some of them are just harder to see than others.”

Arthur is silent for a while, his fingers still tracing that same path over Merlin’s knuckles and down over the ridge of his thumb to stroke his wrist. “Sometimes those are worse,” he says.

+

The next morning, Arthur is up early, vacating the bed before Merlin has a chance to do more than stir beside him. Despite their broken night, he seems to be possessed of a kind of manic energy, a drive to be doing anything other than standing still. Merlin has seen Arthur like this before: in Camelot, it used to be on the eve of an important ball or dinner party, or sometimes when he was anticipating a hunt. At the Front, it had been before they went over the top, when Arthur channelled his nervous energy into inspecting the troops and buoying up the men.

Here, with nothing in particular to do except _exist_ , Merlin is dragged along the Parisian streets into a variety of eclectic and tangentially related shops: a tailor’s, a laundress’s, a barber’s—for lunch, a _boulangerie_. Arthur seems determined that they should sample every delight the city has to offer, and yet in the end seems dissatisfied with all of them, as though he were looking for one thing in particular and cannot seem to find it. Only once does Merlin see him pause, something like a real expression filtering to the surface when a trio of soldiers, still in uniform, makes their way down the pavement on the other side of the street. One man’s left leg has been amputated just below the knee.

“So much loss,” Arthur murmurs, when the trio has passed, “and yet—”

But he cuts himself off. Merlin threads his fingers into Arthur’s, squeezing them briefly before letting go. Even here, in Paris, it is unwise to attempt anything more in daylight, not out on the streets where anyone could see, but there is a bereft note in Arthur’s voice which cries out for physical comfort. Merlin has the sense that his good mood, such as it is, exists in a very fragile space which might at any moment plummet with equal enthusiasm into the blackest despair or the deepest rage, and for the first time since he left the Front he feels afraid—not _of_ Arthur, per se, but of what might become of him.

Arthur, however, apparently remembers that he has chosen to be cheerful, and resumes their walk without any further comment, dragging Merlin by the sleeve to experience some new wonder and apparently forgetting all about the man with the missing leg. Merlin notices, however—Paris being thick with demobbing soldiers—that Arthur is careful to give those in uniform a wide berth, as though afraid that the memory of the trenches will cling to him like the mud and drag him down.

When they return to the hotel some hours later, having gorged themselves on cream buns and good, English tea for the first time in years, Arthur flops back on the bed with a sigh and throws out his arms.

“Real clothes, real food, real people—I feel like a king,” he says, and Merlin throws a clean shirt at him.

“As your only subject, Your Majesty, I revolt.”

“You certainly are revolting,” Arthur remarks, but he springs to his feet again anyway, catching Merlin by the waist and spinning him around until they’re face to face. “Let’s dine in tonight,” he says, eyes glittering as he crowds Merlin back against the chest of drawers. “Just the two of us. I’ll tell the kitchens to send up a tray.”

“Is that wise?” Merlin asks, still uncertain what to make of Arthur’s mood. “Won’t the staff ask questions?”

“It’s only dinner,” Arthur replies, shrugging. “They won’t care.”

He presses the pad of his thumb against Merlin’s mouth; Merlin lets him drag it down, parting his lips to slide the tip inside. He savours of salt and sweat and something like earth, and Merlin opens his mouth wider, curling his tongue against the taste. 

It’s late afternoon. The bay window has been thrown open, letting in the noise and bustle from the street, the lace curtains billowing white in the milky sunlight. Arthur moves this thumb back, smearing spit over Merlin’s lips and making them tingle, never taking his gaze from Merlin’s face.

It’s like fucking and it’s not like fucking. They have never had the leisure for this before, the slow, drawn-out anticipation, the gentle tease. Merlin is acutely aware of his breath, of the fingers of Arthur’s other hand lightly gripping the back of his head.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” Arthur says, his voice low. “Every hour—every fucking second of this whole miserable fucking war, all I could think about was what I’d do if something happened to you.”

He slides a knee between Merlin’s legs, and Merlin closes his eyes. He’s hard, as he inevitably is with Arthur this close, smelling of linen and aftershave and underneath it the dirt, as though the French soil has been ground into his skin. Arthur moves his thigh, rubbing against him, and Merlin catches his breath, grabbing hold of Arthur’s shoulders with both hands to keep his balance. 

“And then you disappeared,” Arthur goes on, his voice still steady and calm, relentless. “And I thought you were dead—torn apart on the wire or blasted apart by guns and _fuck_ , Merlin, if you think it matters—if you think _any_ of it matters after something like that—”

He’s crushing Merlin up against the armoire, breath hot against his neck. Last night, held tightly in Arthur’s arms, Merlin had thought about this; about Arthur’s hands and cock and— _oh,_ Arthur’s mouth. Arthur’s thumb has found the divot of his throat and he’s kissing him like it’s the first time or maybe the last, like he doesn’t quite believe they’ve made it out of the war alive, and Merlin clings to him, breathless, wanting a hundred things at once and paralysed by the enormity of every single one of them.

“I had plans,” Arthur whispers, “for how today would go, I wanted—”

“Wanted?” Merlin asks, when Arthur stops to scrape his teeth against Merlin’s jaw. “What did you want?”

“I thought I’d start with this,” Arthur says, capturing Merlin’s mouth, and when Merlin makes an approving noise he carries on, mapping out the contours of Merlin’s face with his lips and the tips of his fingers. “And then this,” pressing his mouth to Merlin’s collarbone, “and maybe this,” his tongue on Merlin’s nipple through the soft cloth. Merlin can feel himself stiffening further beneath Arthur’s touch, and that, too, feels like the first time, untainted as it is for once by guilt or fear. “And then maybe—this.”

He drops to his knees. Merlin inhales, shocked, then Arthur’s lips are against his cock, mouthing through the thick fabric. Merlin gropes for the dresser and holds on, trapping a moan between his teeth as Arthur’s lips trace the outline of him inside his trousers, teasing him with damp heat and the promise of friction. “You really want to—”

“You did, for me,” Arthur says, sitting back on his heels and looking up at him as he proceeds to unbuckle Merlin’s belt. He unbuttons the fly, sliding his hand inside, and this time Merlin can’t hold back the sound he makes as Arthur’s hand closes around his cock. “You saved me, Merlin, so many times, in so many different ways. It seems like the least I can do.”

Arthur’s mouth is hot and wet. It envelops the head of his prick with deliberate slowness, accompanied by the first tentative lick of Arthur’s tongue, and Merlin’s hips hitch of their own accord, pressing forward into the intoxicating warmth. He doesn’t want to overwhelm Arthur on his first time, but Arthur doesn’t hesitate, opening his mouth to let him in like the only thing on his mind is taking as much of Merlin as he can.

“God— _Arthur_ ,” Merlin groans, locking his knees to keep them from buckling. Arthur hums around his cock and grips his thighs, and Merlin lets out a breath that’s half laugh, half whimper as the pleasure rolls through him. It’s not as though he hasn’t imagined this, what it might be like to have Arthur on his knees instead of the other way around, but he had imagined it as brisk and businesslike, for the purpose of getting Merlin off before—before moving on to other things. This is not like that: Arthur staring up at him, flushed and earnest and unashamed, looking at Merlin and only Merlin as he swallows him down and then pulls off again, sensuous and slow.

Merlin loses track of time—loses track of space. Nothing exists except Arthur’s eyes and the obscene stretch of his mouth, and he doesn’t _want_ anything else to exist; there has never been anyone else for him, has never been any other goal than keeping Arthur safe and making sure he came through the war intact. He slides his hands into Arthur’s hair and grips him tight, wondering if maybe there _is_ a way for them to come through this, the two of them, to build something new together instead of letting the world tear them apart.

“I hated it,” he whispers, trying to put this feeling into words, and at Arthur’s inquiring noise he says, “I hated the whole _idea_ of being a soldier. I never wanted to kill anybody and I never gave a fig about God and country, but you were there, Arthur, and I would do— _oh_ , I’d do anything—”

He chokes to a stop as the orgasm punches out of him, spilling hot come into the cavern of Arthur’s throat, and Arthur swallows it all, eyes closed, lashes trembling against his skin. Just looking at him is enough to make Merlin’s legs give way, and then he’s sliding down the armoire to meet him, Arthur catching him half way where he’s kneeling on the floor.

There is come on Arthur’s mouth. Merlin wipes it off with a thumb and they stare at each other, late afternoon sunlight gilding Arthur’s hair and the red sheen of his lips. Inevitably, Arthur kisses him again, and Merlin opens to him, tangling his fingers at Arthur’s nape to drag him closer, wrapping his legs, still mostly trouser-clad, around Arthur’s waist and grinding against the hardness there.

“Arthur,” he breathes, fingers slipping and scrabbling over Arthur’s skin as he fights to hold onto every inch of him at once. “Arthur, I want—”

“What do you want?” Arthur’s hands are cupping his cheeks, his thumbs stroking along Merlin’s cheekbones into the hollows behind his jaw. Merlin can feel his cock twitch again helplessly at the tenderness of those hands, still gentle even after the things he has seen them do. “Tell me.”

“I want—” Merlin gropes for words. “I want _everything_.”

“Then you shall have it,” Arthur promises, kissing him again until he can hardly breathe, and Merlin lets him: what need has he of air, if he has Arthur?

+

They don’t end up dining at all that evening. Instead, they strip naked, peeling off each other’s clothes and discarding them without a second thought. Arthur’s gaze on him is hungry and sweet, seeking him out for small, shy moments as though unable to help himself, and a slow flush rises up Merlin’s body, his skin alive with anticipation. They have never done it quite like _this_ before, though they have come close to it once or twice, and he can’t help a flutter of nervous anticipation as he wonders what it will be like, how it will feel—what it will mean for the two of them, after all this time.

“On your belly,” Arthur murmurs, and Merlin obeys, lying down flat on the bed and spreading his legs so that Arthur can kneel between them. He doesn’t want to ask how Arthur knows what to do—they’ve been lovers for years, friends for more than that, but there are parts of Arthur’s life which are a mystery to him, and there are questions he isn’t sure he wants to find answers to. The mere idea of Arthur sharing this with someone else makes his hands clench painfully into the sheets, and he barely feels it when Arthur pours something cool and slick into the crack between his buttocks. He thinks it may be oil of some kind, possibly, but he doesn’t bother to ask because at that moment Arthur’s finger presses inside him, and his entire body jerks in startled response, a sound like an aborted yelp forced out of his lungs.

“Easy. I’m not going to hurt you. Just try to relax.”

“Easy for you to say,” Merlin grunts back, but he tries his best to follow Arthur’s instructions, taking a deep, slow breath and consciously letting the tension bleed out of his muscles. It helps—at least, he thinks it does, because after a moment the intrusion feels less strange, and Arthur pushes deeper, coaxing, probing, until he brushes up against something that sends heat flashing through Merlin’s body. “There,” he breathes, and Arthur does it again. “Yes—fuck, Arthur, that’s—”

“Good?” Arthur presses his face into Merlin’s lower back, his laughter sending tremors all over Merlin’s skin. “That’s kind of what I was aiming for.”

Merlin’s answering retort is lost in a low whine as Arthur withdraws his fingers then crawls onto the bed, rolling Merlin over onto his side then fitting himself against him. His cock nudges in between Merlin’s thighs and Merlin sucks in a breath, reminding himself not to tense as it slowly pushes inside him.

It’s thicker than Arthur’s fingers were, hot and fat in a way that makes his cheeks burn and his stomach pull tight, but he leans into the foreign sensation, trusting Arthur to guide them both the way he always does. Arthur’s strong arms wrap around his chest, and he watches the progress of Arthur’s hands across his hips, his waist, the too-thin barrel of his chest and his prominent ribs. If the war has done anything, it has winnowed him away to his essentials: bones and skin, a few bruises, cheekbones like knives. Certainly nothing very prepossessing, though Arthur doesn’t seem to agree.

“Used to forget how beautiful you are,” he breathes into Merlin’s neck. “How much I always wanted you. You’d walk into the dugout sometimes and it’d just hit me, all at once, only I couldn’t _do_ anything about it.”

He bites down, and Merlin arches, straining. Arthur’s hand is a maddening clasp around his cock, tight enough to stimulate but not enough to get him off. “I never forgot how much I wanted you,” he replies, panting. “Not once. I broke out of that prison camp and walked a hundred fucking miles of shell craters just to get to you before you got yourself blown up, or shot, or gassed…or lost your god damned socks…”

“You and those socks,” Arthur says, but it’s muffled, and Merlin can feel his smile against the first of his vertebrae, a pleased shiver collecting itself at the spot before spilling down his spine. “You need a better hobby.”

Merlin’s still laughing as Arthur begins to rock, short, shallow circles with his hips that don’t do much except ratchet the tension higher. They’re clinging to one another now, plastered together by heat and sweat into a confusion of skin and tangled limbs, and it would probably be easier if Arthur would shift back more, if he got some real traction with his thrusts and put his god damned _back_ into it, but Merlin suspects that Arthur’s reasoning runs similar to his own; more moving means less touching, and touching is the only thing that seems likely to keep them grounded, to keep this strange almost-a-dream they’re living from falling apart. 

The sun is setting. A warm breeze drifts in through the open window, smelling of fresh flowers and motor oil and restaurant food, and Arthur fucks him lazily, like it’s wholly unimportant whether he comes or not, but Merlin can’t to muster up the urgency to change his mind. Lying there, he tries to picture what it would be like to spend every day like this, wrapped up in Arthur so closely he can hardly tell where Arthur ends and his own body begins. Impossible to imagine a world where that could be real — and yet. _I always thought things would be different, when it was over_.

Afterwards, Arthur cleans him up with one of the white linen towels, and Merlin thinks with vague embarrassment about laundry maids and wagging tongues, but he doesn't resist when Arthur climbs back into the bed and settles alongside him. There’s barely enough room for them to kiss properly, so Merlin finds himself pressed against the mattress, Arthur’s tongue licking into his mouth and his hips trapping Merlin in place with a gentle weight.

“I love you,” Arthur whispers roughly, and in spite of everything somehow it’s _this_ which sets the triphammer of Merlin’s heart, “and when I thought I’d lost you, when I thought—Merlin, I—”

He can’t finish the sentence; can't seem to get the words out, and Merlin smiles painfully back at him, blinking through the sudden tears that are prickling behind his eyes. Like many things about the war, this is better left unsaid, better buried with the dead in the fields of France than carried with them. He kisses Arthur’s mouth again in understanding, and Arthur kisses back, greedy and shaking, his fingers leaving prints on Merlin’s skin that Merlin half believes will never wash off.

+

“I received a telegram from my father this morning,” Arthur says later. He’s lying on his back, one arm tucked under his head as he stares at the ceiling, his gaze turned remote and far away. “He wants me to come home as soon as possible. Said he’s arranging things with the General.”

“Hmm.” Merlin stretches. He thinks of Camelot House with its endless grounds, the undulating hills and old stone fences. “That’s kind of him. Are you looking forward to it?”

Arthur doesn’t answer. They’ve left the window open, the chill spring twilight creeping in over the sill and turning the shadows violet and indigo. In this light, Arthur looks like one of those classical Greek busts, his expression lost to the smudging darkness.

“Arthur?” Merlin prompts him. Strangely, Arthur’s stillness is more unnerving than his manic energy, and Merlin finds himself looking for the rise and fall of his chest to reassure himself that he’s alive. “Do you think your father’s planning something?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur responds, finally rousing himself enough to answer. “And I just…don’t care. I’ve been trying all day to be enthusiastic about going home but I can’t seem to manage it. It all seems so far away, somehow.”

“Arthur.” Shifting, Merlin turns to look at him, sees the pale, extraordinary eyes in the Apollonic face. “What are you really saying?” 

“I—” Arthur lets out his breath and scrubs his face, his hand shaking. Merlin says,

“You don't want to go back.”

“I meant what I said,” Arthur says unsteadily, and something in Merlin's chest breaks open, a painful welter of emotion spilling out like blood from a mortal wound. “I'm tired of having to pretend to be something I'm not. I want more than that.”

“So we'll stay here, then,” Merlin says, turning to press his mouth to Arthur’s shoulder. He is starting to understand, perhaps, what Arthur means when he says _more_ , and he wonders how much of this has been an exercise in Arthur convincing him by degrees to want it, too. “We’ll rent our own _appartement_ with a view of the river, and never set foot in Camelot again.”

"You'd stay with me?" 

“Of course.” He tries to say it like it’s nothing, like it isn't reckless and terrifying and full of unknowns. “I’d follow you anywhere, you know that.”

He already knows that Arthur _will_ go back, someday, for Arthur can no more resist the pull of Camelot than he could resist the call to arms, but there will be time enough for that discussion later. For now, he eases Arthur close, burying his face in Arthur’s neck and breathing in. They have survived the worst of it, somehow, and as long as they have each other, they can live through everything else.

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone suddenly burst out singing;  
> And I was filled with such delight  
> As prisoned birds must find in freedom,  
> Winging wildly across the white  
> Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.
> 
> Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;  
> And beauty came like the setting sun:  
> My heart was shaken with tears; and horror  
> Drifted away ... O, but Everyone  
> Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
> 
> –– [_Everyone Sang_ by Siegfried Sassoon](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57253/everyone-sang)


End file.
